WTF Indeed:Political donations should be unlimited with highly transparent reporting, and ad buys should be illegal in a general election.

I'm 100% okay with this - all I'd ask is that the giver and the recipient be subject to nothing more than the ethics reporting requirements that any salaried corporate worker has - immediate and full disclousure of all transactions.

I'm pretty sure that Bernie Sanders has introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to do just that. Given that it needs to get thru both houses of Congress before it can be submitted to the states, I doubt that it'll happen any time soon.

The turnaround on constitutional amendments form proposal to ratification tends to be counted in decades. Even if there is a push for it, you won't hear about it for another couple sessions and it won't be up for ratification for another 5-10 years minimum.

That's a long time to try to keep momentum going and a lot of opportunities to fail, if people aren't trying very hard I kinda understand the feeling.

Well, this is just trying to overturn the overall cap on spending. I'm not sure I disagree with that - if Sheldon Adelson can give every (R) in Congress $2500 rather than (or more likely, in addition to) giving it to a SuperPAC that does the same, where's the real harm.

Though the current system seems to have encouraged high-profile conservatives to spend a lot of money on completely futile causes, which brings me joy (schadenfreude is best freude).

Jim_Callahan:The turnaround on constitutional amendments form proposal to ratification tends to be counted in decades. Even if there is a push for it, you won't hear about it for another couple sessions and it won't be up for ratification for another 5-10 years minimum.

That's a long time to try to keep momentum going and a lot of opportunities to fail, if people aren't trying very hard I kinda understand the feeling.

The internet and the speed of information these days may cut that time down significantly - true, no Amendment has been ratified since 1992 (and that was a 200-year old amendment that was probably legal already), but I haven't really heard of concerted efforts since then. CU should be it, but it still needs a movement behind it. (IMO, OWS should have run with that, and not let itself tear itself apart.)

I have no idea why - maybe it's that getting 37 states to agree on anything without being total douchehammers about it is nigh impossible these days.

WTF Indeed:Political donations should be unlimited with highly transparent reporting, and ad buys should be illegal in a general election.

Of course then all the money would come through shell corporations and legal entities.

In an ideal world, they would be forced to wear race car driver jackets with the logos of their biggest contributors on them, but let's face it, our democratic republic will forever be in the pocket of big business.

Dr Dreidel:Jim_Callahan: The turnaround on constitutional amendments form proposal to ratification tends to be counted in decades. Even if there is a push for it, you won't hear about it for another couple sessions and it won't be up for ratification for another 5-10 years minimum.

That's a long time to try to keep momentum going and a lot of opportunities to fail, if people aren't trying very hard I kinda understand the feeling.

The internet and the speed of information these days may cut that time down significantly - true, no Amendment has been ratified since 1992 (and that was a 200-year old amendment that was probably legal already), but I haven't really heard of concerted efforts since then. CU should be it, but it still needs a movement behind it. (IMO, OWS should have run with that, and not let itself tear itself apart.)

I have no idea why - maybe it's that getting 37 states to agree on anything without being total douchehammers about it is nigh impossible these days.

The Blues & the Reds can't even agree to do routine business like pass a budget.

DjangoStonereaver:The Blues & the Reds can't even agree to do routine business like pass a budget.

How can they be expected to debate a constitutional amendment.

1. A "Continuing Resolution" is a budget by a different name.2. Congress can be circumvented to get a new Amendment (Article V) - at least 33 states agree to hold a convention where the amendment is proposed, then either 38 state legislatures or 38 state-level ratifying conventions pass it. It becomes settled law of the land, and there ain't a goddamn thing Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, Pelosi, Reid, Obama, both Clintons or Osama bin Laden's reanimated Lich-King can do about it.

Dr Dreidel:2. Congress can be circumvented to get a new Amendment (Article V) - at least 33 states agree to hold a convention where the amendment is proposed, then either 38 state legislatures or 38 state-level ratifying conventions pass it. It becomes settled law of the land, and there ain't a goddamn thing Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, Pelosi, Reid, Obama, both Clintons or Osama bin Laden's reanimated Lich-King can do about it.

The ensuring court battle would be both fascinating and mercifully short.

qorkfiend:Dr Dreidel: 2. Congress can be circumvented to get a new Amendment (Article V) - at least 33 states agree to hold a convention where the amendment is proposed, then either 38 state legislatures or 38 state-level ratifying conventions pass it. It becomes settled law of the land, and there ain't a goddamn thing Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, Pelosi, Reid, Obama, both Clintons or Osama bin Laden's reanimated Lich-King can do about it.

The ensuring court battle would be both fascinating and mercifully short.

I basically posted the text of Article V. How would that even see the inside of a courtroom?

Dr Dreidel:qorkfiend: Dr Dreidel: 2. Congress can be circumvented to get a new Amendment (Article V) - at least 33 states agree to hold a convention where the amendment is proposed, then either 38 state legislatures or 38 state-level ratifying conventions pass it. It becomes settled law of the land, and there ain't a goddamn thing Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, Pelosi, Reid, Obama, both Clintons or Osama bin Laden's reanimated Lich-King can do about it.

The ensuring court battle would be both fascinating and mercifully short.

I basically posted the text of Article V. How would that even see the inside of a courtroom?

// stupid challenges, or did I seriously misread something?

You think no one would challenge it? Regardless, the enforcement of any such amendment would be almost entirely through the courts.

Because what you're talking about - reversing the system of legalized bribery we've set up - has to first make it through the very same people who are accepting the bribes. I'm sure you can spot the obvious difficulty there. Plus, with how the GOP has pretty much contracted rabies even mundane, non-controversial legislation is almost impossible to get through congress now. Even things that a majority of Americans DO want they're not delivering on, because the GOP is so dysfunctional now.

Citizens United was a SCOTUS ruling, which means that by definition you need an actual constitutional amendment to reverse it. Constitutional amendments are by design very, very difficult to push through. That's OK, when something is important enough we come together to do it.... But in this particular case, that's not really going to work. Both parties suckle at the big business/hyper-rich benefactor money teat, so there's pretty close to 0 interest in fixing it - with Bernie Sanders' notable exception. This is a political cradle to grave problem, so it would take a monumental, historic tectonic shift in politics to see real action.

And the real problem isn't simply the unlimited, untraceable cash that Citizens United ushered in... it's really the whole system of political donations, as things were pretty damn bad even before the ruling.

We need public campaign finanacing to really end to the legal bribery system.

monoski:GoldSpider: cman: There are enough people who support overturning Citizens United via constitution amendment. Why isnt there any sort of concerted effort to do so?

Because those people aren't serving in Congress.

Nor are they proposing a new money channel to congress. Got feed them somehow. You can't expect them to live off of the six figure salary can you?

The political machine raises the bar on what it costs to get elected.In the end its our fault for not realizing that candidates who are constantly on TV and the internet, with hundreds of campaign centers and a personal media blitz going for years, just might be beholden to extremely wealthy people.

/At this point it would almost be better if it happened openly./At least you can see who's buying, who's getting bought, and how many pieces of silver we're worth.

You don't understand, this is perfectly fair. Poor people will have the same right to donate millions to political campaigns. What, you don't have millions of dollars laying around? Working 60 hours a week just pays the bills? Lazy socialist!

qorkfiend:You think no one would challenge it? Regardless, the enforcement of any such amendment would be almost entirely through the courts.

I was unsure what question you were asking. Any challenge wouldn't make it past initial filings, right (assuming the above process was followed)?

Enforcement of all the Amendments is already done through the courts, n'est-ce pas? Or do you mean a court would have to certify that "this is actually the 28th Amendment to the US Constitution, as full in force as the First, Second and Twenty-First"?

LedLawless:You don't understand, this is perfectly fair. Poor people will have the same right to donate millions to political campaigns. What, you don't have millions of dollars laying around? Working 60 hours a week just pays the bills? Lazy socialist!

Alternatively, they could kickstart it.Want a law passed? Buy a few senators with $1 donations.